She managed to ask a few questions of the Fox Eradication Program’s boss, Craig Elliott

Jane Ryan: The Fox Eradication Program is controversial really and there’s one reason for that, and that is many people in Tasmania who do not believe there are foxes here.

What evidence do you have to suggest that there actually are foxes actually in Tasmania?

Craig Elliott: Yeah…. Ahhm… it’s always been something that, ahmm ... has amazed me but it’s a result of the fact that the Government got in before the impact of foxes was actually being seen. So, back in…. ahh… about 10 years ago, there was increased sightings and ahhh… and over that period there were a couple of road kill foxes found which is again normally a sign, you know, that the population’s increasing or at a certain level. In the last few years the ... ahmmm the big indicator for us has been some scats that have been found. And there has now been over 60 scats found and this a… (interrupted)

Jane Ryan: Are they from different foxes or the same one?

Craig Elliott: Yeah… a few of them have been been aahmm ... able to be analysed down to identifying individual foxes.

Jane Ryan: So at the moment you’re running an eradication program; you’re baiting for foxes and you’ve been laying 1080 around farms in the north west, in the south…

Craig Elliott: Well we’ve covered the State; we’ve gone to where the foxes should be and we’ve now cleared it out.

Jane Ryan: Is 1080 sort of established as the best mode of eradication then?

Craig Elliott: It… certainly is… and ahhm… unfortunately again for Tasmania 1080 has such a stigma about it; from how it was used, ahh… in past days. We use a low-dose manufactured bait and the beauty of it is that’s actually derived … it’s been developed, based on a natural chemical… ahhm, an Australian chemical, and Australian natives have a built-in tolerance to that actual chemical.

So… this is one of the big concerns again for a lot of landowners is: “If I let you onto our property and you bait are you going to wipe out all the native wildlife?” And not at the densities we’re putting it out; not at the actual dosage of the,ahh… 1080. [2.28]

…

Jane Ryan: Guess, one of the major concerns that are raised by lots of people who consider having 1080 on their properties, is the impact it will have on their dogs. How many dogs have been affected by 1080 during this program?

Craig Elliott: Well… it’s interesting again it’s one of the allegations that some people level at us that ahhm… we’re wiping out people’s dogs as well. Ahhm… they’ve been stories up here on the north coast that we’ve knocked over 12 dogs, ahhm ... in the past year or so… ahhm… which there is absolutely no evidence of that. As part of… as we move into a new area we contact local vets and just ask them if they get anything presented to them that could be 1080 poisoning to contact us and we’ll actually pay for the analysis to find out whether it’s 1080 or not. [3.05]

…

Jane Ryan: Sometimes the bait will get dug up and get eaten… if foxes have got 6 hours to go before they actually curl up and call it a day, how often do you actually know whether or not you’ve baited a fox? It could be anything, couldn’t it?

Craig Elliott: Yeah, that’s one of the biggest, ahhm… problems is, ahhm… knowing what then takes… takes the bait. I mean, sometimes you’ll see something has dug it up and chewed on it partially.

Something like a fox that’s… yeah, all of a sudden you’ve now got something that’s running; that’s out there.

That’s… that’s why people ask us: ‘Why haven’t you actually shown us a fox that’s been baited?’ Well, it’s the same on the mainland where they’re [fox] in control and in amongst a massive number of foxes. They don’t find all the foxes that are dead. 1080, if it’s one of its shortcomings; it’s not an immediate rapid knock down… but, you know, that’s part of the safety side of it, for us.

If we had something like strychnine that we were using; well the risk is if anything touched it; it’s going to get knocked down… we don’t want to take that risk with our native wildlife or with domestic dogs.

Jane Ryan: You haven’t found any carcasses through this baiting process.

Craig Elliott: Not through the poisoning … and in all, ahh… all reality, ahhm… we don’t expect to.

Jane Ryan: Do do you know that it’s successful then? I mean I’m just really interested in how you can quantify its success if you don’t have any foxes to show for it.

Craig Elliott: Yeah, umm … good question.

The big factor people focus on the baiting, obviously, as… as a big part of the program. And it is. But what we’re doing is really ramping up our monitoring afterwards. So for us to actually say that we’ve actually successfully removed this State of foxes, we need to show that we have gone through the State and actually found no sign of foxes, after the baiting has gone through.

So we use our detector dogs there. And, ahhm, they’re doing some amazing work at the moment and they’re working, ahhm… up here at the moment… in, ahhm… the north west; in the Circular Head area. They’ll come through this area three months after the baiting’s gone through and look for any sign of foxes. So if we find a fox scat outside that period, we know some [foxes] have either survived the baiting – a fox has survived the baiting… or some thing has re-invaded the area.

Jane Ryan: Just quickly before we wrap up, how much has been spent on this program; this particular program since 2009?

Craig Elliott: (Laughs) Good question… the actual figure, ahhm… I wouldn’t have it off the top of my head. We’ve got, ahhm ... a Commonwealth grant, which is tied to fox eradication; ahh ...that’s a couple of million a year… so all up even if you count the early days when they first started investigating the, ahhm… incidents of foxes in the State, it’s been a bit over $50 million. [8.46]

A bit over $50 million! Just think how many doctors and nurses we could employ for that! People who really make a differnece and not those who are playing ‘hunt the fox’ with no idea whether there are any or not. Shameful waste of money for Houdini Renard!

“You can’t have it both ways. The Bigfoot population cannot stretch across North America enabling sightings every other Tuesday, and be in such low numbers that solid evidence never materializes,” says Dustin Welbourne writing in The Conversation today.

He looks at the map of Bigfoot sightings in the USA and presents cryptozoologists with a dilemma:
“…any species with a huge distribution would consist of a large number of individuals, and therefore, we would have plenty of physical evidence.”

The logic is sobering – and perhaps a little bit too close to home. Because given a similar lack of physical evidence, can the Tasmanian fox eradication program expect to have it both ways for much longer?

Of course, cryptozoology and pseudo science are old bedfellows; just as chocolate eggs prove the existence of the Easter Bunny - to children.

If the very mention of DNA analysis makes you think of mythically insightful conclusions, think again. Apparently, it comes down to the quality of the science and just how rigorously it has been reviewed.

It also has a lot to do with what is conveniently omitted in the analysis.

But you have to give people points for trying I guess.

Cryptozoologists in the USA explain that the reason we don’t find physical evidence of Bigfoot is that they bury their dead.

At least Bigfoot has the good humour to leave some tracks from time to time.

And as for film or photographic evidence, admittedly, it would be lot harder to squeeze into a fox suit. With the number of shooters that abound in Tasmania it would also be a sure fire way to depart the world in the doggy position.

In the mean time, anyone sighting a fox carrying a shovel should phone the hotline immediately.

I remember a letter from a forestry type arguing that we should eliminate foxes by eliminating all their potential prey. A scorched earth policy probably borrowed from his employer.

The present FEP seems to aim at eliminating most of the threatened native wildlife whose preservation is purportedly the main reason for the FEP. Oh, and yes, think of all the jobs.

John Hayward

Posted by john hayward on 27/02/13 at 02:21 PM

Walking down Launceston mall the other day at lunch time, I saw that the fox eradication program has been 100% effective.

There are still a few getting around Hobart, but you have to be alert in the traffic.

Posted by Got Me a Pony on 27/02/13 at 06:58 PM

Couple of things the Wally’s haven’t even thought of which absolutely confirms that it is just a sham run by snake-oil salemen…
now I am not gonna alert them or anyone else here…but the people in the know see the couple of (missing) things as absolute confirmation that they are and always have been Wally’s that haven’t got a bloody clue what they are doing.

Posted by Ian Rist / Foxy Volpone on 27/02/13 at 07:41 PM

Ironic isn’t it Mr Hayward!
Elementary my dear Watson, Over Fifty Million dollars- bugger the wildlife. It makes you wonder how they keep justifying this simple fact to the public though doesn’t it. Blatant denial, its worked so far!

Posted by Penelope Marshall on 27/02/13 at 07:53 PM

Showing once again, as it always was, it’s just about the money, not truth. Just why the media, indeed the Examiner, seeing as it’s in their immediate media realm don’t look into just why the fox task force and save the devil departments work out of essentially the same office in the Lonnie district is rather telling … but then again the examiner, gunns, forestry and some of their preferred political toys essentially worked out of or should one say, under the thumb of their special little mates club for years, didn’t/don’t they?

Posted by Claire Gilmour on 27/02/13 at 07:54 PM

re 5, 10 points for humour and observation.

Posted by Simon Warriner on 27/02/13 at 07:58 PM

“Recently ABC reporter Jane Ryan went out on a fox poisoning expedition in north west Tasmania…”

There’s nothing like adventure tourism, is there?

Posted by Boohoo on 27/02/13 at 10:16 PM

One must wonder to the possibility of whether or not Ol’ Bigfoot knows he is a member of the Bigfoot species?
Tis uncanny how Mr Bigfoot, (and presumably his Bigfooted young family, ‘for he cannot also be a Methuzla’) has continually reproduced small Bigfoots that then go on to become Bigger Bigfoots?
There has to be some of those other Bigfootish adaptions or influences, levels of intelligence etc, or even the similar level of resistance peculiar to our Phoxes, such as their not being susceptible to the FEP Fox-toxic 1080 splurgings carried out across the length of Tasmania.
I often wonder what our Tasmanian branded Phoxes actually look like, especially since no one has ever factually seen any of these here Phox critters, (let alone managed a long distance fuzzy photo of a Phox running forward with his head looking back behind him, (or her) as does this Ol’ Bigfoot?
Do you think it possible that we do not even have one single Phox bouncing about in our forests or our farmlands?
I welcome any sort of assurances by any of the TT forum attendees that these Phoxes or a Phox, do in fact dwell in Tasmania.

Posted by William Boeder on 27/02/13 at 11:38 PM

#11

A Phox on both your houses Mr Boeder!

Posted by jack Jolly on 28/02/13 at 08:40 AM

Mr Elliott being a former Queensland copper took on a tough gig in Tasmania ... he was about the tenth manager for a decade-long program that had not found poisoned, photographed, or trapped a Tasmanian fox; that was littered with false trails, a few bodies and loads of crap.

In being given the job in 2011 he’s had to walk a very fine line between his own personal integrity whilst trying to provide essential cover for a back-story from hell!

He came to “catch a fox” ... so The Examiner told us on 21 May 2011. I trust when you need to pull the rip-cord Craig, your parachute opens successfully.

Posted by David Obendorf on 28/02/13 at 08:46 AM

# 13 INTEGRITY ? ? They wouldn’t know what the word meant…from day one this fox farce has not had any integrity, morals or ethics.
They are much worse than mercenaries, paid killers or common thieves…they know the truth but are prepared to sell their honour for a “few more dollars more.”
And that starts at our politicians,bureaucrats and goes all the way down to the bait layers that know the truth but still will accept the “blood money.”

Posted by Ian Rist/ Foxy Volpone on 28/02/13 at 06:11 PM

Yeah, ahh, err, umm, ahhm, good question…..another Government patsie

Posted by Russell Langfield on 28/02/13 at 09:09 PM

Mr Rist, perhaps the authors of the December 2012 paper with the over-confident title: Foxes are now widespread in Tasmania are the individuals who need to carefully consider the concept of confirmation bias.

That’s a concept where people undertaking a scientific study, instead of examining their hypothesis, their methodology and their results with an open mind, already have an established predisposition favouring a particular prejudice.

In other words they fail to critically question whether their conclusions based on their laboratory results could be erroneous or incorrect. Particularly when the index multiple-fox incursion event had ben shown by others to be unproven, without fact and based on unsubstantiated heresay and rumour.

In my opinion, using as a principle reference an Invasive Animals CRC review report that did not and could not prove that index incursion event surpasses carelessness; it is deceptive.

Posted by David Obendorf on 28/02/13 at 10:01 PM

One of the other major problems Mr Obendorf as been a willing and ignorant,non-investigative or possibly in some cases even a complicit media.
Control too of the media by the standard handbook 101 tactics id est intimidating journalists, lunching them and finally employing them if all else fails!
But as you know “Tasmania is a very special place.”

Craig Elliott, is a job like yours impressionist art with on triple the average Tasmanian salary?

Posted by Tigerquoll on 01/03/13 at 06:41 PM

One of the effective but cruel hoaxes that the bureaucrats running this program employed was the ongoing attempt to label anyone who criticised the evidence and assumptions of their fox eradication efforts as ‘conspiracy theorists’.

In addition the DPIPWE officials also warned anyone who made claimed fox sighting and considered going public that their identity would attract unwarranted media attention and they could face ‘ridicule’.

As a result the Fox Program gave anonymity to sightings and then attributed a reliability score to those sightings. Neither the reporter nor the general public had any any idea what was authentic and followed up and what was merely added to the FEP’s long list of sightings across Tasmania.

Science cannot operate like this but in Tasmania’s great fox hunt it has since 1998.

Posted by David Obendorf on 01/03/13 at 07:06 PM

I found this story in the Sunday Tasmanian/ The Mercury quite revealing…..

Only in Tassie could this FFTF nonsense keep rolling. Ten years of keystone cops and dimwits doing whatever is necessary to get their snouts in the trough. Take a straw poll of the FFTF and ask any of them what professional wildlife qualifications they hold, zoology, ecology? The answer is nothing, save a big four wheel drive and an unnatural obsession with guns.

Fifty eight million dollars for what? The introduction of broad-acre poisoning in Tassie. God damn all of you ignorant pigs who have poisoned animals for your fat paychecks, ignorant mean pigs with the brain of a rat and the soul of a cockroach.

Poison is the weapon of the coward and the courtesan, and there aren’t many courtesans in the FFTF ...

Posted by O'brien on 04/03/13 at 08:25 PM

A plausible explanation for why this costly program has perpetuated for 13 years is because it has produced a great deal of money for DPIPWE; in fact a very large component of their nature conservation budget is cross-subsidised out of this fox-money. They need that money!!!!

Regrettably a number of organisations allowed this misappropriation of taxpayer funds to continue for 13 fox-less years without critically reviewing numerous anomolies that exists with the world’s only invasive animal eradication program where no actual foxes have been found, photographed, poisoned, trapped or shot in 13 years.

Welcome to Taz-mania - exploit the opportunities!

Posted by David Obendorf on 04/03/13 at 10:09 PM

David and O’brien #‘s 21 and 22 you only had to observe the “witnesses” at the PAC Fox Inquiry and there are your answers.
Trust me, their day is coming…..............

Posted by Ian Rist on 05/03/13 at 06:44 AM

Only in Tasmania do the fox carcasses and fox skeletons evaporate after being poisoned with the “VERY SPECIAL PLACE 1080”......
only in Tasmania…....

Trust Mr Rist is a word that’s hard to use in the context of this long-running fox plot.

What will expose the fabrication?

Individuals with the knowledge and the capability to expose the truth.

Posted by David Obendorf on 08/03/13 at 07:01 AM

Trust me Mr Obendorf…I see the big mushroom shaped clouds on the horizon…have I ever failed you yet?

Posted by Ian Rist on 08/03/13 at 12:22 PM

I am reliably informed that the FEP/ISB inner sanctum/advisors/bum lickers refer to the fox sceptics as just a bunch of crazies.
A bunch of crazies that uncovered their scat scam, the lies and deceit around fox carcasses, blood and skulls…not bad for a bunch of so-called crazies.
There is more to come, the evidence of fraud and deceit is there…it just needs some honest? politician to prosecute it….....
Old saying in life “he who laughs last, laughs longest.”

Posted by Ian Rist on 10/03/13 at 02:43 AM

Mr Rist I persionally would never be concerned by those hear-say rumours about fox critics.

Mr Rist congratulate yourself and wear such calmumny as a badge of honour.

What I alway look forward to is any jesture to engage in factual discussions on the materials DPIPWE use to maintain this 13 year-old, $50 million plus ‘fox eradication program’.

History shows they have never shown any inclination to work with the growing number of critics of this program; by sharing of their data.

Access to their data has proven impossible (we have tried!). Stephen Sarre et al (2012) would not even publish their data in their recent sensationally titled paper: “Foxes are now widespread in Tasmania”.

Posted by David Obendorf on 10/03/13 at 12:26 PM

The Editors and ‘checkers’ of that Journal should be taken out and metaphorically flogged for allowing a paper with such a title to be published under their name. Imo. It rings of cheap propaganda rather than anything to do with scientific truth. It is a scientific shame job on that Journal. The only next hope is for the ISB to gain permission to import ‘some’ foxes to continue to sensationalize the whole fiasco. Why was it published in the UK? Far from home and nobody would know the difference? Or bother to check? It’s a shame job. We have heard about conflicted ‘in house’ peer review before. Not worth a cracker. Imo. Did Sarre see the fox shit?

Posted by russell on 10/03/13 at 04:30 PM

Well “russell” I can tell you that the three innocent young Tasmanians that were named by NPWS staff as being responsible for importing and releasing up to 19 fox cubs that triggered the first 2001 Tasmania Police investigation aren’t too happy either…I understand they have placed the matter in the hands of their lawyers… I understand also that they intend to sue.
I would imagine the Institute in London may be doing a vey quick retraction!
I guess a couple of the families involved have some old scores to settle, especially ...

Posted by Ian Rist on 10/03/13 at 08:03 PM

Re # 29

When the true origin of the fox shit is exposed, its packaging and its transit arrangements from the mainland to Tasmania and then back to Canberra it all should make interesting reading…...............

Posted by Ian Rist on 10/03/13 at 08:09 PM

Re # 29
When the true origin of the fox shit is exposed, its packaging and its transit arrangements from the mainland to Tasmania and then back to Canberra it all should make interesting reading…...............

Posted by Ian Rist on 10/03/13 at 08:49 PM

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